Thursday, 16 June 2016

I think I've found the happiest place in New York. Sadly, it comes at quite a cost, so I'll have to stick to spending time in the second happiest place in New York – Ample Hills – until I can afford to visit Santina regularly.

Santina sits in a glass cube underneath the Highline. In summer its side doors are flung upon and the restaurant spills out onto the cobbled streets and wide sidewalks. In winter, it looks like a tropical island which has landed from outer space in the middle of Antarctica.

We visited this coastal-Italy-meets-Hawaii restaurant for the first time last Saturday. Between the two of us we had multiple reasons to celebrate, plus the sun was shining, and I was jumping up and down with excitement about drinking my cocktail out of a pineapple. The moment we walked into Santina and were greeted by the hostess in a white pleated mini skirt and pink polo shirt, who stood underneath a colorful, floral chandelier, and bopped to the Italian music playing loudly throughout the airy room.

We were led to our little table, set up with the most beautiful, brightly colored, hand-painted, terra-cotta plates. While our cocktails were being shaken up at the bar, and a warm, gentle breeze blew in from the streets, we both decided that this was the perfect choice for our celebratory evening.

Cocktails soon arrived: Punch (because that's the one that comes in the pineapple) for me, and the Amalfi Gold for B (bourbon, orange, ginger, and peach). Both filled with plenty of ice, and balanced pertly on the right side of not-overly-sweet. We sipped and sipped, admired the chickpea pancakes our neighbors were feasting on, and decided that we'd quite like to move in here, pretty please.

Thankfully, the food didn't then go on to disappoint. We worked our way through salads of arugula and fig, the most stunning thinly sliced squash dotted with honey agrodolce, crisp sage, and crème fraîche, and a bitter caper and radicchio salad served over the top of melting tuna carpaccio. After we'd eaten all these beautiful (and, may I add, rather healthy) vegetables, we moved on to the most delicate, vivid ricotta tortellini (yes, I know, I am that predictable), and the sticky, smoky guajillo chicken with eggplant yogurt.

Sadly, they were no cannoli left – I guess it's important that we leave something to come back for. As a result, we ended our evening at the second happiest place in New York, which is, as I said, Ample Hills. It's therefore no surprise that this turned out to be one of the happiest evenings we've had in this never-sleeping, ever exhausting, often challenging city.

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

This week is perhaps one of the most important of the year. Not because I'm on holiday on a sun-drenched island, not because it's Christmas, and not because it's my birthday. No, this week is important because it is official Negroni Week aka the perfect excuse to drink the best pink cocktails for seven days straight.

We kicked things off at New York's Negroni Week launch event in Bushwick on Monday night. For those of you new to this phenomenal cocktail party, Negroni Week is where Campariand Imbibemagazine work together to encourage bartenders around the world to conjure up a Negroni creation, and donate a portion of the proceeds from the cocktail sales to a charity of their choice. Campari and charity: What's not to love?

To celebrate this much-loved week, New York's best bartenders had come to the Campari-strewn, red and white, Monopoly-themed Brooklyn venue to show off their finest Negroni creations to us 'press', and to raise money for their charity of choice in the process. If every Monday night could be as fun as this one was, the world would be a happier place. And Tuesday mornings would forever be a blurry struggle.

Our favorite of the four choices was the TiNegroni (literally, a tiny negroni), made by Tristan Willey at our local Long Island bar. The combination of Campari, Cinzano 1757, Wild Turkey Rye, and an orange twist was all the more delicious because of it's adorable size.

However, my heart was really won over by the 'Float the Boat' cocktail (pictured above, recipe below) that we discovered later in the evening. This Negroni ice cream float was a dream come true: frothy, sweet, herbal, bitter, and what I plan on drinking all summer long. Make sure you celebrate the remaining days of Negroni week with at least one three of these.

Friday, 3 June 2016

Sorry for the bizarrely long silence here over the last fortnight. I honestly don't know where the weeks went. We were running (far and fast - that took me out for a few days), I've been ill, working hard, and we haven't done anything interesting enough to share with y'all. But I promise I will make more of an effort, and won't neglect this space for so long from now on. Terrible blog-mother I am. Let's get back to our normal routine with my 5 happy moments from the last 5 days:

About Me

I'm Hannah, a twenty-something Londoner who's found herself living in the Big Apple. Flicking through these pages, you'll be able to follow my journey of baking, cooking, eating and living in the magical city that is NYC.